From Siri to Alexa to Cortana, conversational interfaces are hitting the mainstream and becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives. However, user experiences with such applications remain disappointing. Although it is easy to get a system to produce words, none of the current agents or bots display general conversational competence. Modeling natural conversation is still a hard problem. But in order to tackle it, conversational UX designers must possess a technical understanding of the structures of natural conversation. This workshop explores the intersection of user interface design and the design of natural conversation. It seeks to outline principles and guidelines for Conversational UX Design as a distinct discipline. Workshop participants will get their hands dirty building conversation flows.Call for Participation
The goals of this workshop are to explore the intersection of UX design and the analysis of natural, human conversation in the context of text- or voice-based virtual agents and to begin to define a set of design principles and guidelines for today’s conversational platforms. In exploring this space, the participants will give short talks or lead discussions on workshop topics related to the design of conversational interfaces and will get their hands dirty building conversation flows on the platform of their choice in the break-out session.

Participants should be those with some experience 1) in the design of conversation flows for virtual agents or similar systems or 2) in the analysis of natural, human conversation and an interest in applying it to conversational interfaces.

Interested participants should submit:

A position paper formatted in the CHI Extended Abstracts Format. It should include the name, contact information, affiliation of authors, and must be limited to 2-4 pages, including figures and references. All submissions must be in English.

A short biography of each author’s background, their interest in conversational UX design, and their motivations for participating in the workshop. Note: at least one author must attend the workshop and that all participants must register for both the workshop and for at least one day of the conference.

Submissions should be sent by email to rjmoore@us.ibm.com by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Friday, January 20, 2017. Submissions will be acknowledged via email.